Friday, August 14, 2009

Yes, that's the footnoteMaven on her steady steed. From the picture you can tell I am not a cowgirl, but a farm girl. We had no lovely ponies to ride. This was our "E Ticket." Dad used this horse to plow and it wasn't a horse that would get away from you. While he worked he'd thrown we little ones on and we would sit there for hours, going nowhere; just spending time with Dad and our imagination.

My imagination leaned heavily toward westerns. I was never the damsel in distress. I was the hero or the villain of the piece depending on my mood. I had a Cisco Kid black double holster cap pistol set with a black hat and vest. They were silver guns that fired strip caps that made a popping noise and smelled like sulfur. No sissy set of guns for me.

Or Girl!

The Cisco Kid was the first program I saw on television. My parents didn't buy a television until I was twelve. I attribute my love of reading and vivid imagination to a lack of the captivating television in my formative years.

The Cisco Kid was a half-hour western television series starring Duncan Renaldo as The Cisco Kid, and Leo Carrillo as the jovial sidekick, Pancho. Technically, Cisco and Pancho were desperadoes, wanted for unknown crimes. They were the western version of Robin Hood assisting the downtrodden when law enforcement officers proved corrupt or unwilling to help.

The Kid was the product of O. Henry's The Caballero's Way. "The Cisco Kid had killed six men in more or less fair scrimmages, had murdered twice as many (mostly Mexicans), and had winged a larger number whom he modestly forbore to count. Therefore a woman loved him. " My kind of reading.

As you can see, I had my own sidekick, my own Pancho, little sister Biblio. The men we killed and the cattle we drove. Yes, give me a pony/horse and a gun. Now that's real adventure.

Photographs:

Maven On Horse. Photograph. 1952. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2008.

Maven and Biblio On Horse. Photograph. 1952. Privately held by the footnoteMaven, Preston, Washington. 2008.

I tweeted this, too! I was a terror on a stick horse! (folks grew up w/horses, and dad was determined I wouldn't!) I had two six guns, cowboy boots and a hat, and long summer blonde braids. Some of the boys at school called me Annie Oakley!

I loved this post, fM! Cute pics! And I love that you girls played with guns. I'm with you on less TV, more imagination. That's how my brother and I were growing up. He was my little Pancho and boy do I miss that.

fM,Great post, as usual. Do you have a Borders bookstore near you? We recently had some bargain DVD sets of old tv series at ridiculous prices like 9.99 or less. They included the entire Cisco Kid series and the old RichardGreene Robin Hood series. You might be able to find them online. I shocked a co-worker who was unpacking the boxwith my "Oh Cisco...Oh, Pancho" and my acappella rendition of the Robin Hood theme song.

Was Cisco sponsored by Teddy Bear Peanut Butter where you watched it as it was here in the Boston area?

It was the story I wrote about our Mother. The one where I talked of her life before she became a Mom. Biblio cried because Mom's death is still a bit raw for us. She suffered terribly with pancreatic cancer.

I've asked Biblio to write something here. She is after all the writer in our family. Maybe she will!

-fM

P.S. Thanks for the adorable. I haven't been that since the day this photograph was taken.

I agree. There are no greater adventures than those we conjure up in our minds! These are great photos. That horse is SO huge, or y'all are really small [or maybe a little of both]! Thanks for sharing!

I am surely glad to discover that I wasn't, after all, the weirdo my family kept trying to convince me I was! I, too, was a cowgirl, complete with guns. They kept giving me dolls (ugh!), but I kept saving my money and going down to the five-and-ten and buying capguns and caps! Don't know that it helped any, but when I served in the Coast Guard I qualified as either marksman or sharpshooter with the .38, the 1911 military .45, the M-16, and the riot shotgun!

Thanks for the hard work you do to assist genealogists everywhere. Since you are interested in conducting and teaching family history research, I thought you might appreciate knowing about the 2009 California Family History Expo in Redding, Calif., Oct. 16 & 17. This expo is presented by Family History Expos, www.fhexpos.com, a well-established Utah-based company.